


I won't be your Judas

by claquesous



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcoholism, Depression, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 13:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3384044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claquesous/pseuds/claquesous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He smiles tenderly and laughs viciously. “See, Apollo, you herald the days, but that makes you responsible for the nights too.” He lifts a tentative hand, which falls back to his side. “What’s so shitty is that I’m too goddamn addicted to sunlight.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	I won't be your Judas

**Author's Note:**

> Old, old, old, like two or three years.

Grantaire's absence speaks more than his presence. His presence is predictable and relatively safe; his absence is not. Enjolras tells himself that's why he's at R's door this very minute. He wants to make sure he's alright. And he does, he really does. But it's not the only reason, and they both know it, as Grantaire pulls open the door after an offensive stretch of bell-ringing.

His eyes are red and his voice is rough, but he hasn’t been crying. Enjolras cringes and steps forward intrusively; Grantaire matches it with a step back and a ducked head.

“Grantaire—”

“I think you'd better go,” he mumbles, gentleness fighting bitterness in his tone. He moves to shut the door, but Enjolras doesn't let him.

“If I go, can you promise me you'll be alright?” he challenges.

Grantaire avoids his eyes, and Enjolras sighs. He pushes the door open and plants himself on the threshold. Grantaire steps back to maintain a three foot gap, still looking at Enjolras's shoulder. “Why?” he asks softly, very close to a whine.

Enjolras doesn't answer, just stares into Grantaire's forehead until he looks up.

He finally does look up, but his expression is pained. “What do you want, Enjolras? Why act like you think I won’t disappoint you? You know better. It would be hypocritical if you weren’t so damn perfect.” He smiles tenderly and laughs viciously. “See, Apollo, you herald the days, but that makes you responsible for the nights too.” He lifts a tentative hand, which falls back to his side. “What’s so shitty is that I’m too goddamn addicted to sunlight.” He grinds the heel of his hand into his eye socket, like he's trying to wipe away tears that haven't fallen yet. He looks at Enjolras mournfully for a long minute, and turns to retreat back to his room.

Enjolras follows him, leaving the three feet between them. Grantaire turns the second he realizes Enjolras has deemed his presence necessary, and gives him a pleading stare that Enjolras denies. Suddenly he moves forward and Enjolras lets Grantaire come to him, lets him touch the sides of his face then recoil like he's been burned. “Why do you let me do this, then refuse to punish me for it? God knows I need it,” he gasps, half laughing. “Why do you let me make promises I can’t keep, why keep me around, Enjolras? Why do you make me live with what I've done to you and give me no way out except the one I’ll never take? Because you know I could never leave you. I’m your satellite, Apollo, and I can’t very well just take my hat and go.”

Enjolras clenches his jaw. Grantaire’s face warms and he frantically curses his goddamn mouth as he retreats out of no-man’s-land, cowering before the god’s righteous anger. “Grantaire.” Enjolras takes a deep breath, trying to be kind even though he’s ready to throw his hands up and storm out of the house. “It is your decision to come back, it is always yours, so don't blame me for locking you up with your conscience.”

“You’re here now, forcing your mercy upon me,” Grantaire says sullenly.

“I’m here to make sure you’re alright, even though you and I both know that will never be true,” Enjolras snaps.

So much for kind.

“Look, I don't want to see you hurt, for once believe that I truly don't. I want to trust you, but every time I try to let go of your hand you hurt yourself.” Everything he tries to do to help his friend backfires and he no longer knows what he’s supposed to say, so he just says what’s in his head. Or his heart. Whatever’s speaking. “I'm—sorry, Grantaire, I really—really am.” Why is he _crying_? Grantaire's the one who should be crying right now, not him. He blinks the tears out and away. “You're fucking with _my_ head and I don’t know what to do and I'm _sorry_.”

Grantaire's face is contorted with pain, but dry. He reaches for Enjolras but again his hands fall to his sides. Enjolras is suddenly viciously glad Grantaire doesn't have the guts to touch him, because he's pretty sure affection would just make him angrier.

“Fucking with _your_ head?” Grantaire splutters finally.

“Yes, Grantaire,” he growls, embarrassed and unwilling to repeat himself.

“What could I possibly do to fuck with your head? I am hardly a complicated person. Maybe twisted and desperate,” he concedes bitterly, “but not complicated.”

“Not complicated?” Enjolras exclaims indignantly, mostly out of shock. His inexplicable silences and outbursts and glares and tender looks and disappearances and lapses of judgment, everything Grantaire _does_ confuses Enjolras.

Grantaire shrugs. “I believe in nothing, after all. I’m a fucking animal, and an alcoholic one at that.”

“You told me once that you believe in me.”

Grantaire averts his eyes. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why not?”

“You deserve better disciples, and you have them. I won’t be your Judas.”

“Jesus loved Judas as much as he loved the rest of them.”

Grantaire snorts. “Jesus was a fucking idiot.” He stares at the ground for a long moment. “You love me?” His abused voice is almost too quiet to hear.

Enjolras blinks. “Why do you think I’m here?” he asks gently, wanting to step closer.

“I don’t _know_ ,” Grantaire says incredulously, meeting his eyes desperately. “I have no fucking idea, because I am so beyond fucked up and quite honestly have no desire to do any of the things that will change that, and you refuse to make me, so why not just leave me in time out, for fuck’s sake?”

Enjolras lowers his eyes guiltily. “What can I do?”

“You can get me a beer,” he replies. He turns to stalk back to his room and Enjolras panics.

“No! I want to help, the right way this time. I have been a shit friend, letting you do this to yourself and to me and to our friends. Letting _you_ be a shit friend. I want to fix this.”

Grantaire looks almost comically baffled. Enjolras wanting to help, actually help, the unpleasant kind of help, the kind that might actually work, is the last thing in the world he wants. Like hell is he going to let Enjolras herald and witness his recovery, which, if it ever happens, is sure to be a thoroughly unpleasant process for all remotely involved. He backpedals frantically. “You can... keep coming over.”

Enjolras rejects the passivity out of hand. “No.”

“You can’t fix this, Enjolras, will you open your fucking eyes?” Grantaire demands. All right, maybe he could, but Grantaire doesn’t want to be fixed. He’s not okay, he’s not even good, but he’s good _enough_ , and rebuilding his shitty life is not worth the tearing down part.

“Do you really think I believe that?”

“No, but you have a way of conveniently ignoring all kinds of things.”

Grantaire realizes it’s untrue when Enjolras crosses his arms, his conscience crystal clear. “Like what?”

“My complete and utter, and constant, inability to function.”

“And I refuse to ignore that any longer, convenient or not.”

Grantaire flounders and flounders some more to cover it up. “Goddamn it, Enjolras! I am not your responsibility. What makes you think that your way is any better than mine, anyway?” He’s getting ridiculous, and he knows it, but he can’t just surrender. Cowards cling to their vices. “What would you even do? I’m not particularly good at doing what I’m told.”

Enjolras uncrosses his arms. “I don’t know,” he says, but the terrible light in his eyes whispers _I’ll find a way_ and it scares the living shit out of Grantaire.

He’s frozen for a moment, fumbling for a reason, a good reason to say no, because Enjolras won’t take any other kind and Grantaire senses he only has one guess. Panic crawls up his throat as he realizes that he doesn’t even have a bad excuse. The only thing between him and functionality is a choking clot of selfishness and fear, neither of which will satisfy Enjolras as a protest. Grantaire’s eyes clear and he stares at Enjolras fiercely.

“You can’t half-ass this,” he warns, his voice shaking.

“You can’t either.” Enjolras’s eyes are not triumphant.

“Don’t ditch me when things get ugly. Because you’ll want to.”

“No I won’t.”

“You will. Don’t.”

Enjolras nods, realizing on the second try that this is not actually about him. As far as anything is not about Enjolras in Grantaire’s life, since Grantaire himself revolves around Enjolras.

With a final terror-stricken glance, Grantaire crumbles, folding into Enjolras’s chest, not crying but trembling violently. Enjolras’s arms tighten around him immediately and another tear leaks into Grantaire’s hair.

“I’m sorry,” Grantaire whispers.

“Me too.”

 

  



End file.
